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What Can Be Done to Treat Vertigo

Can you imagine suddenly feeling as if you’ve been pushed off of a precipice — but knowing that those sensations don’t have anything to do with your surroundings? Or being unable to feel the ground under your feet as if you were walking six inches above the floor? Or your senses telling you that the room is spinning around you, bringing on extreme nausea, all the while you know that can’t possibly be true?

You’d be convinced that something was terribly wrong with you physically, or perhaps that you were losing your grip on sanity, wouldn’t you? 

After interviewing people who have experienced attacks of severe vertigo, and trying to mentally put myself in their shoes, frankly, I found the scenarios they described absolutely terrifying. And the fact that these bouts can come out of nowhere must make them even more disruptive, and difficult to deal with. 

Worse yet, many people, including a number of health professionals, seem to be unaware that vertigo is very often treatable. (Thankfully, most conditions that cause this symptom are benign in and of themselves — at least in the sense that they’re not life-threatening.) A vestibular therapist who reached out to me on Twitter told me that a number of patients arrive in the office after having lived with an almost instantly reversible form of vertigo for long periods — in one case, 25 years!

You can find out more about the most common causes of vertigo, and how each of them are treated, in my latest Good Times health feature: ‘Regain Your Balance: What Can Be Done to Treat Vertigo.’

My heartfelt thanks to the interviewees who so kindly shared their time, expertise and experience:

 

Image by PixelAnarchy Courtesy of Pixabay